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I nod. “They call them changelings. How much did you hear?”
She tugs at one of her braids. “Enough.”
I pull her close. “Thank you for saving me. But now, I have to go back to save someone else.”
“The prince he mentioned?”
“Yes, but also my friends.” Her hazel eyes narrow and I add, “They’re human, and they’re innocent bystanders.”
She nods as if she understands that part of my speech, at least. But tears glisten her eyes. Tears she’s too old and too stubborn to spill. “Don’t promise me, this time,” she says, her eyes harder than any fourteen-year-old’s should be. “Don’t promise you’ll come back. Not unless you will.”
I squeeze my arms around her one last time, my throat clenched. “I’ll see you again, Jane. Who else can keep you from running wild?”
Then I rush down the stairs toward the Shimmer before she can see the hesitation in my eyes.
56
Magus balks when I ask him to open the forbidden vault. He didn’t hesitate when I stood in the Faerie ring and called him over using the Gaelic words he gave me two months ago, after he returned me home. Words only to be used in an emergency. And he didn’t so much as blink when I demanded transport to the academy. But now, he finally seems to realize what I plan to do, and his large mossy eyes go wide.
Turns out stealing a forbidden weapon imbued with a hundred Fae souls using dark magic is where he draws the line.
He tries to talk me out of it. Tries to make me go to the headmistress instead. But by the time I find her, it might be too late for my friends. And even then, she might not believe me. Not with our history.
After a heated argument, I finally win him over. As the vault door grates open with a whoosh and the tang of dark magic washes over me, I nearly hesitate, everything becoming real.
But then I remember the video of the darkling attack inside the restaurant. An army of darklings will decimate everyone in the forest today. Everyone.
And I cannot let that happen.
Magus grunts behind me, his hooves stamping the damp stone floor. “Hurry and choose your weapon, human. And let’s hope it does not kill you.”
“Not necessary,” I say, pressing into the shadows. “It’s already chosen me.”
I find Ruby asleep in Mack’s dorm room, surrounded by Kit Kat wrappers. She screeches when she wakes, and immediately pledges her services to me. Outside, we discover the portals the first years used near the Lake of Sorrows.
I send Magus off to alert Mr. Willis and then Ruby sniffs each portal before pointing at the farthest one down the line. “The prince and your friend went through that one.”
“Are you sure?” I ask. We only get one chance at this.
She flashes an impish grin. “Kid, I’d know that Fae hunk of meat’s scent anywhere.”
“Which one? Asher or the prince’s?”
“Both.”
Okay, then. That’s not creepy at all. I drag in an anxious breath, steadying my nerves. Then we count to three and cross over.
The second we step foot on the other side, a gray, lifeless world envelops us. Dead trees wend and tangle into a canopy of gnarled branches strangling the sky. There’s no life anywhere. No budding foliage or grass or insects. The air is laced with the stench of decay, and snowflakes float around our heads.
No, not snow. Ashes.
“This has to be a mistake,” I say. “This portal lead directly into the scourge lands.”
“Um, kid, we have a problem,” Ruby whispers. I glance behind me and my body goes cold. The portal is gone.
“No mistake,” I growl. “Whoever wants the prince dead must have messed with the portal so it spit them out in the wrong spot and then wouldn’t let them back in.”
Earlier, I stuffed the forbidden weapon inside a bright pink backpack I stole from the commons room, and I sling the bag higher onto my shoulder. Ruby uses her abnormal sense of smell to track the group through the woods, leading us deeper and deeper into the Forest of Eyes.
